I often talk about quick and easy frugal meals. For most meals that is truly what I cook, however I do occasionally splurge and cook something a little fancier.
I know many people love to go out to eat, my husband and I are not those people. We never have been ones that love eating out. Yes, we do enjoy an occasional meal out, but not often.
I am one of those people that will eat out, and then figure out how I can make it at home for much cheaper and healthier. To me eating out is just not worth it most of the time, but this does not mean that I do not enjoy good food.
I have found that I would much rather splurge on an occasional really nice meal at home, than spend the money eating out. This is something that we enjoy and in the end saves us money. Even if I buy a really expensive cut of meat, I spend less than half of what it would cost to take my whole family out.
One of my splurges is salmon. I love salmon. My husband’s splurge would be a really good, high quality steak.
So, what is your preference? Would you rather spend money eating out? Or do you splurge occasionally and buy something special to cook at home.
We are not huge on eating out either. I love to make good and healthy food for my family at home. We do eat salmon regularly because it is good for you. I usually buy it at costco when the price isn’t bad, or I’ll buy it individually frozen there as well. It is a splurge, but we like it.
We do both. We eat out once a week just because our commute to and from work is long and by Friday night we are both usually too tired to cook, so we like to eat out – it treats us to a nice meal, as well as relaxing time where we don’t have to cook and clean up. We also splurge and have nice meals at home, especially on weekends where we have more time to “do it justice”.
We used to really enjoy eating out. We’d do date night on Saturdays and eat out. And then we had our first child. We’d still go out most Saturdays but the fare usually became places like TGIFridays. And then we had our second child…eating out became WAY more work than enjoyment. So now we eat at home except maybe once a month and the occasional fast food. So we do splurge on at-home meals sometimes. We usually have a steak dinner once or twice a month and similar “splurge” meals a few times a month.
For us, its more the experience than the food itself. As we do more and more cooking at home, we’re finding food out less and less “good”. But we enjoy the experience of going out, ordering off a menu and letting someone wait on us.
Now, if I could have a maid to do total meal clean-up, I’d probably enjoy home even more. I guess I will have three “maids” to do just that…I just have to wait until the kids are a little older to take on those roles. LOL
.-= Tricia´s last blog ..Oven Brown Rice =-.
@Tricia, I agree maids at home would be nice. No clean up is probably my favorite part of eating out. 🙂
We love salmon too, and we’re fairly particular about what kind we buy–usually wild caught Sockeye. My husband doesn’t count fast food as eating out. If we could afford it, he would enjoy going out for a quality meal once a week. We do grab a quick meal on Sundays to give me a break in the kitchen.
As for me, I don’t have a strong urge to dine out, but I do like to have a reprieve from deciding what to eat and cleaning up afterward. A few years ago we lived abroad and did have a maid. But it makes it harder to cope now without one. So in the long run, maybe it wasn’t that helpful?
What would be nice is having people over more often and in turn enjoying a meal at a friend’s house. However, making time for in-home hospitality seems to be a challenge for families these days.
.-= Julia´s last blog ..DIY Chocolate Cupcakes: Her Birthday Wish =-.
Sometimes I don’t feel like cooking, so it’s nice to go out and enjoy not having to clean up. On the other hand, I often feel like the food I cook at home is just as good as what I get in a restaurant!
Homemade is ALWAYS best. Healthier and much much better tasting.
Hi,
The salmon in the pic looks good.. looks like a spicy one.. do you have a recipe already in this website? Looks very yummy
@Bharathi, The salmon in the picture is a little bit of a spicy one. I wish I could say I had a recipe for it. I do have salmon recipes and will try to post some, but this is not one I made. Well, I cooked it, but I cheated a little. This is blackened salmon (so a peppery taste) that I bought at Sam’s Club. My family loves it. It saves me a lot of time to buy it that way and we simply grill it. It makes for a quick and easy dinner. It comes frozen in individually sealed so I can take out and use as much as I need.
Hope my costco carries similar stuff. I like spicy seafood. Looking forward for more of your salmon recipes 🙂
For me its fish and not ever anything really expensive just fish period because I love to eat it, but for some reason when I cook it myself I can’t stomach eating it.
I’m retired, So I do 99.9% of the cooking, But some days I just can’t do it.. So we go out, but we hit the deals.. When I shop I generally buy in bulk and divide it up into portions via scale or what ever. Then I Vacuum pack it. A lot of the time, I throw in spices, and or butter in then Vacuum pack it. That way when I want whatever, I just put the pack into hot water and let it come up to serving temp. Also known as Sous-Vide cooking. I do that all the time with Vegs. they cook in their own natural juices and what ever I add. I’ve done Proteins a few times, but Sous-Vide cooking on meats is a different game. There I just thaw the meat out and then cook it… I’ve been able to have almost any meats, fish, or whatever at my finger tips… When the freezer isn’t acting up… I even vacuum pack my bulk chocolates. I’ll vacuum pack anything… Ladies it’s something to look into.
.-= Michael’s Kitchen´s last blog ..ORGANIC?????? =-.
@Michael’s Kitchen, I have a vacuum sealer, but I have never cooked anything in the sealed package. I have used it more for meats, etc., but I love the idea of doing vegetables that way. Thank you for the idea, I am going to have to try that.
@Lynn, Lynn, I’ll send you the cooking temps and times if you wish. I started doing carrots that way first, and the were great… Now I do them that way all the time… but let me know and I’ll send you somemore info on what vegs, time, prep etc. to you, Just say the word.
Thanks mike.
.-= Michael’s Kitchen´s last blog ..ORGANIC?????? =-.
Because we’re on the Dave Ramsey Plan and working to get out of debt, our eating out is rare and usually need determined. Since it’s currently baseball season and Alex’s practices and games are within a 1/2 hour of me picking them up from daycare, we’ve been frequent visitors of Subway. Maintly because it’s budget friendly, and diet/health friendly.
At home, though, we LOVE splurging. Cooking your own ‘fancy’ food is soo economical. We eat lots of seafood (including salmon). We occasionally have steak, but we’re watching our red meat intake so we try to stick with fish or poultry. BUT, there are so many ways you can ‘fancy up’ your proteins.
Plus, we have lots of fun making our meals together 😀